Steve Sklair
Steve started his professional television work in editing and he graduated to Production and camerawork. He had two long spells at the BBC and while there one of his films he directed, a Video Diary, ‘The Man Who Loves Gary Lineker’ won a BAFTA for Best Single Documentary. He also won a UNICEF award for a film ‘furthering the rights of the child’ (Child Slave Rescue). He has worked as Series Producer on many factual series, often creating the style and feel of first run series.
Before working for the BBC his first film as director was ‘The Black and White Pirate Show’ – a one hour documentary about pirate radio for Channel 4.
He has worked on a lot of long form documentaries, cutting his teeth on Video Diaries where most diaries were one hour or longer. His particular skill is in keeping people’s interest and enthusiasm over the span of a longer film. Video Diaries very much needed the guiding hand and sense of a story that Steve as Producer had.
He directed and produced two films in the Channel 4 series ‘No Going Back’ – each programme looking at the highs and lows of families who try to make a new life away from England . (a one hour Channel 4 slot). Steve structured the programmes and wrote the narration.
He shot and edited the one hour documentary ‘Red Oil’ for True Stories on More 4.
More recently he directed, wrote, shot and edited a 90 minute feature documentary about the Cypriot classical pianist Nicolas Economou.
He also made ‘A Worker of the 20th Century’ for TVG (Galicia TV) in Galician about a communist living under the Franco dictatorship.
Steve has also been working in videos about education for the last 4 years in conjunction with the National Education Union and campaign groups More Than a Score and Rescue our Schools. Recently he has made web documentaries about expeditionary learning for the Edge Foundation, and has filmed and edited a 38 minute documentary about XP Secondary School in Doncaster. He has a real eye for capturing the most important moments with children in schools and he gets on with everyone, helping to put interviewees at ease with the camera, as well as a strong editorial sense and what makes a good story. He is currently working with Schools on Screen making 40 films for The Next Big 10, promoting progressive initiatives in education in England.
Recently he’s filmed and edited a series of films for the Stroke Association helping stroke survivors get back to cooking and also a theatre performance of Emmeline – The Suffragette Movement for Theatre Lab.
He loves music and has shot and edited several music pieces with the renowned jazz pianist, Dave Lee.
He also directs, films and edits corporate films for companies like Microsoft, The French Chamber of Commerce, the Hackett group and SAP.